The media storm that broke over the government earlier this summer had been building for a very long time. The lightning may have struck in July but the rows over weapons of mass destruction and the tragic death of David Kelly were symptoms, not causes, of the breakdown in relations between the government and the media. The thunder is still rolling around Westminster.
We – politicians, journalists, the public – are standing at the brink of something truly frightening. We have jeopardised the capacity for trust that underpins our democratic life. If we do not take a collective step back, we will go over together like lemmings. What distinguishes democracies from dictatorships is that while tyrants like Saddam rule through fear, our system of government is based, if not on consensus, then on consent founded ultimately on trust.
We cannot know all the secrets of government; we cannot accommodate all the information that is available to us. So, in the end, whether we voted for them or not, on serious issues of judgement we have to place our trust in the integrity of our leaders. Iain Duncan Smith understands that. That’s why he concludes each challenge to the Prime Minister with the charge that ‘no one can believe a word he says’. It’s cynical but it’s rhetorical. We know where IDS is coming from.
When the Telegraph, the Mail and the Mirror join the chorus we are forearmed: we know about their political prejudices and their circulation battles. In any case,
we have long ceased to expect the truth from our daily papers. At Westminster, we all know the journalists who trade in ill-informed gossip in the Strangers Bar. We know the political correspondents who regularly rely on the unattributed quotes they make up to give a spurious authority to the agenda-setting stories their editors demand. And when a Sky reporter quietly resigned in July over a report he had fabricated during the Iraq war, almost
no one commented. Perhaps no one was surprised.
But until now we have believed in the BBC as a public service broadcaster with no agenda beyond the truth. So when it accuses the Prime Minister of hoodwinking parliament and the public into war, it is difficult to imagine a more serious allegation. That is the ultimate breach of trust. Before the BBC can level such a charge, it must surely have a well-informed as well as credible source; it must corroborate and challenge its information;
it must give the government a proper opportunity to respond; it must report both sides faithfully and soberly. And the decision whether these conditions have been met should be taken at the highest level.
It is doubtful whether any of these tests were passed, and that is serious enough. Graver still, in the face of mounting criticism, the Corporation used all its formidable resources, including its near monopoly on news broadcasting, to defend its position and carry the fight back to the government.
But the issue is not about who will win the war of words: it is about the trust that ultimately binds our democracy together.
If not the BBC, whom can we trust? If there is no source of authoritative, unspun information available to us, if the BBC, like the press, now trades in the perceptions it creates rather than the facts it finds, how are we to form judgements and make decisions about how we are governed and by whom?
How can we trust that there is good in the world when all the news is bad? How can we have faith in our system’s capacity to improve our lives when, according to the press and the increasingly tabloid Today programme, so much is in crisis that it’s a surprise that the world hasn’t ended. If the NHS, transport, policing, pensions and schools are all in a permanent state of collapse, what hope is there? If nothing can change for the better, why contribute, why participate, why vote?
In the absence of trust, without the basis for agreement or consent, rational, democratic politics simply cease to be possible. It goes further: communities cannot withstand the loss of trust between neighbours; without a binding consent between citizens, societies fall apart.
But the trust we need to renew is not blind faith. It places on politicians massive obligations for integrity, transparency and accountability. But it places the same duties on those who hold the politicians to account, the brokers of information, the arbiters of public opinion, those who have the last word. We must all take responsibility for pulling out of the dizzying downward spiral in which politicians can’t trust the media, the media don’t trust the politicians and no one believes any of us.
The BBC has done itself and the rest of us great damage in recent months. It is not too late for it to recover its authority but it must do what it has too rarely done in the past. It must have the courage to admit its mistakes. And it must lead an urgent debate about the role of the press and media as active participants in our political life rather than detached and increasingly cynical observers of it, and about the responsibilities of journalists to uphold rather than undermine the democratic values that guarantee their freedoms and ours.
Trust is difficult. But the alternative is unthinkable.
